r extreme! Where shall we put our
dairy?"

THE PETERKINS' CHRISTMAS-TREE.

EARLY in the autumn the Peterkins began to prepare for their
Christmas-tree.

Everything was done in great privacy, as it was to be a surprise to the
neighbors, as well as to the rest of the family. Mr. Peterkin had been
up to Mr.

Bromwick's wood-lot, and, with his consent, selected the tree. Agamemnon
went to look at it occasionally after dark, and Solomon John made
frequent visits to it mornings, just after sunrise. Mr. Peterkin drove
Elizabeth Eliza and her mother that way, and pointed furtively to it
with his whip; but none of them ever spoke of it aloud to each other.
It was suspected that the little boys had been to see it Wednesday
and Saturday afternoons. But they came home with their pockets full of
chestnuts, and said nothing about it.

At length Mr. Peterkin had it cut down and brought secretly into the
Larkin's barn. A week or two before Christmas a measurement was made of
it with Elizabeth Eliza's yard-measure. To Mr. Peterkin's great dismay
it was discovered that it was too high to stand in the back parlor.

This fact was brought out at a secret council of Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin,
Elizabeth Eliza, and Agamemnon.

Agamemnon suggested that it might be set up slanting; but Mrs. Peterkin
was very sure it would make her dizzy, and the candles would drip.

But a brilliant idea came to Mr. Peterkin. He proposed that the ceiling
of the parlor should be raised to make room for the top of the tree.

Elizabeth Eliza thought the space would need to be quite large. It must
not be like a small box, or you could not see the tree.

"Yes," said Mr. Peterkin, "I should have the ceiling lifted all across
the room; the effect would be finer."

Elizabeth Eliza objected to having the whole ceiling raised, because
her room was over the back parlor, and she would have no floor while the
alteration was going on, which would be very awkward. Besides, her room
was not very high now, and, if the floor were raised, perhaps she could
not walk in it upright.

Mr. Peterkin explained that he didn't propose altering the whole
ceiling, but to life up a ridge across the room at the back part where
the tree was to stand.

This would make a hump, to be sure, in Elizabeth Eliza's room; but it
would go across the whole room.

Elizabeth Eliza said she would not mind that. It would be like the cuddy
thing that comes up on the deck of a ship, that you